Happy anniversary, Mr. President

By Donna K Woodward

MEDAN (JP): Is Indonesia better off with President Abdurrahman Wahid than it would be without him? In October 1999 this question would have been unthinkable; Abdurrahman seemed the only viable hope for national unity.

By August 2000 the unthinkable question was being asked. The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) answered affirmatively, though barely so, when it decided against calling for impeachment.

But the question has not gone away. The President has failed to achieve the reforms that people wanted when they toppled Soeharto and rejected B.J. Habibie. Abdurrahman disregards the checks-and-balances role of the legislature and the MPR.

Democracies need presidencies that are strong but also subject to control; strength with control brings stability. Strength comes from popular support; control, from a checks-and-balances system.

President Abdurrahman's failures have cost him support on both the public and the legislature fronts. This loss of support, coupled with the chronic opportunism of some politicians, suggests that for the foreseeable future Indonesia will remain unstable, politically and economically.

Prolonged instability could degenerate into anarchy. Economic regression most certainly will leave the country more beholden than ever to foreign creditors and investors, leading to a loss of sovereignty much greater than what today's opportunistic pseudonationalists can imagine.

An amateurish guerrilla war of independence or secession is all but declared in Aceh and threatens to be copycatted in Irian Jaya. Rumors of coups shadow the government. Physically blind, the President is now on the brink of becoming permanently paralyzed as a leader. He looks more and more like an ordinary bureaucratic in-fighter, instead of the reformer he might have become.

This is what the President and Indonesians face when contemplating the future. The President still has time -- perhaps not much -- to shape the answer to the question that opened this essay. If he does not, the answer might be shaped for him by the MPR -- or by some ambitious well-funded general in collusion with an even more ambitious politician.

What would Indonesia look like without Abdurrahman Wahid as President? First, the question should not offend; it is just below the surface of many discussions.

An exercise in imagining alternate futures is a management tool, not an invitation to change. A premature change of government would cause disruptions that Indonesia can ill afford.

But if economic instability, social unrest and rogue military violence continue, there may be little choice left but to consider a constitutionally legitimate change of leadership. It behooves the country's caretakers to imagine possible futures. It behooves the President to do the same, and not be lulled any longer into avoiding reform by a false sense of indispensability.

What would Indonesia look like without Abdurrahman as President? In the first instance it would mean a Megawati Soekarnoputri presidency.

While this writer once considered that a disastrous prospect because of Megawati's weakness as a reformer and lack of management skills, against the current benchmark, a Megawati presidency now seems less risky.

Vice President Megawati may not be yet a committed reformer; but neither is President Abdurrahman, or Gus Dur. She may not be a dynamic manager, but neither has the President become this.

While Megawati's pliability seemed a handicap when she surrounded herself with an entourage that seemed heavily weighted with thugs, since the election, persons of exceptional integrity and competence from both within and outside the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) seem to have more of her attention.

No cronyism is ideal, but if Megawati's cronies are a higher caliber of professionals than those of the President, then "point to Megawati". One of President Gus Dur's strong points, or so it was thought, were to be his relations with the military and will to subordinate the generals.

It has become clear that the President's political will in this regard has proven weaker than expected. International donors do not like too much change but they would prefer rational change to anarchy.

Affirmatively, a Megawati presidency could bring some advantages. A president who travels through the archipelago instead of overseas could provide a badly needed boost to national morale.

Megawati might have learned something about presidential leadership in her months in the wings; we cannot be sure. What observers do see is the President's stubborn resistance to learning from his mistakes, even after his near-fatal collision with the MPR in August.

A longer litany of comparisons between a Gus Dur presidency and a Megawati presidency is unnecessary; the point is obvious. Many of last year's reasons for preferring President Abdurrahman to candidate Megawati have receded, in view of the President's performance.

In view of the President's continuing failure to learn from his mistakes, his recent statements that the country had no alternative to his presidency, may have less validity than was believed just two months ago.

A personnel change in the presidency looks more possible with each retraction, unwarranted accusation or impetuous claim that escapes the President's lips.

Questioning Gus Dur's presidency is not meant to undermine it. The President still has enough support to shape a better future for Indonesia.

He still has the power to ensure that Indonesia would be better off under his presidency than with a change. His survival is still the preferred outcome.

But the President can no longer rely on the avuncular style of governing that worked for him in previous organizations. He cannot avoid difficult reforms by joking his way around them. Anniversaries are times of remembrance, reflection and promises for the future.

On his presidential anniversary, President Abdurrahman might want to spend some time considering how his compatriots are answering the question asked here.

The writer, an attorney and former American diplomat at the U.S. Consulate General in Medan, is president director of PT Far Horizons management consultancy.